Hey all;

Some of my office-mates and I are in search of a multiplayer video game that we can set up on a VM at work, and take turns playing.

In particular, we'd like to share remote access to a turn-based strategy game. Something laid-back that we can stretch out for days. Ideally, one of us could just take their turn, log out of the remote desktop, and email the next person in line, to notify them of their turn.

In order for something like this to work, the game would have fill the following requirements:
-No 3D acceleration - this would be running on a VM over Remote Desktop, so intense graphics would be too much.
-Turn-based multiplayer on a single computer.
-Slow pace - each office-mate might take only a single turn in a day, depending on how busy we are.


Alternatively, we've considered the possibility of a game which uses a server/clients structure. A game like this could have more intense graphics, as our work machines have plenty of horsepower. But we would need to be able to connect/disconnect out clients at will - we would connect just long enough to take our turns, and then exit the game.

One last option would be a web-based game - something we could access with our browsers or a java client, over our corporate network.

Give these 3 different approaches, can anyone suggest some games that would fit into one of those categories?

Thanks,

-Brian

Web based Riskalike http://www.conquerclub.com with numerous different maps and game modes to play. You can play for free (limited number of concurrent games) but if you want a private game I think you need to pay for premium. In a standard game you have a max of one day to take your turn. If you take it sooner then it passes to the next player. Up to you how quickly you play.

Civilization is the obvious suggestion.

Not sure which one id recommend you go with though. Civ5 has the advantage of being able to switch to oldschool 2d graphics, which runs blazingly fast on an i3 without graphics card. However, im not quite sure yet if it is in urgent need of many balance changes, or if I just need to get used to the new gameplay.

I think civ4 would be a good choice too. Very well playable on a modern computer without graphics card (dunno about VM), solid well tuned gameplay, and you can probably pick it up for cheap now.

That said, given the amount of turns per game, youd need to be able to do multiple turns per day (average), otherwise you are not getting anywhere. That said, turns need not take long at all. Can be anywhere from seconds to minutes, depending on how much is going on.

Quote: Original post by Eelco
Civ5 has the advantage of being able to switch to oldschool 2d graphics, which runs blazingly fast on an i3 without graphics card.

I'm really glad you pointed that out;

someone in our group had suggested Civ 3 - we had all assumed that IV and V would need heavier graphics cards. The fact that Civ5 has a "2d no-frills" mode may just make Civ5 a contender in our list.

Quote: Original post by Eelco
Civilization is the obvious suggestion.

Not sure which one id recommend you go with though. Civ5 has the advantage of being able to switch to oldschool 2d graphics, which runs blazingly fast on an i3 without graphics card. However, im not quite sure yet if it is in urgent need of many balance changes, or if I just need to get used to the new gameplay...

The same thing happened to me with Civ4. When I first played it, it seemed really strange and broken, but then I got used to the changes from Civ3.

http://triplea.sourceforge.net/mywiki

is my favorite. By far. We even have the table-top version of A+A on a table in a conference room permenantly set up.

Also, http://www.wesnoth.org/ is REALLY really fun if you are into that sort of thing, and it is EXTREMELY polished for an open source game.

If you can even find a copy of it anymore, Deadlock was a fantastic TBS game from the mid '90s that had some really epic multiplayer.

The earlier

">Heroes of Might and Magic series is great!

Quote: Original post by BTownTKD

Quote: Original post by Eelco
Civ5 has the advantage of being able to switch to oldschool 2d graphics, which runs blazingly fast on an i3 without graphics card.

I'm really glad you pointed that out;

someone in our group had suggested Civ 3 - we had all assumed that IV and V would need heavier graphics cards. The fact that Civ5 has a "2d no-frills" mode may just make Civ5 a contender in our list.

Its not actually advertized as a performance measure. Its called the 'tactical mode'; a screen where you can actually see what the hell is going on, rather than getting lost in a sea of fancily rendered trees and mountains.

Its a tactical game FFS. You can do everything in the tactical view, and as such, thats all I ever use.

Quote: Original post by nagromo

Quote: Original post by Eelco
Civilization is the obvious suggestion.

Not sure which one id recommend you go with though. Civ5 has the advantage of being able to switch to oldschool 2d graphics, which runs blazingly fast on an i3 without graphics card. However, im not quite sure yet if it is in urgent need of many balance changes, or if I just need to get used to the new gameplay...

The same thing happened to me with Civ4. When I first played it, it seemed really strange and broken, but then I got used to the changes from Civ3.

One thing is for sure: the AI is a serious step down from civ4. Not only can you pwn entire armies with a few well positioned units; thats relatively understandable given that this would require some novel AI programming that is understadably difficult to accompish. But I dont see much of an excuse for the braindead way in which they place their cities. I find myself being able to win on Diety after a few games; something I never even got close to after a billion games of civ4.

If you have some proficiency in the civ series, and you want to include AI in your games (you can do without with 3 or more players), thats a serious argument not to go with civ5.